Spring is in the air, garage doors are opening, winter tires are being stowed, battery tenders unplugged, car covers removed, and the Porsches are getting ready for the tarmac. Although our RTR calendar has had some activities on the docket, it's about to heat up and speed up.

This year marks our 60th Anniversary in PCA and when it is all said and done we'll have had between 80 and 100 things to chose; from Driver's Ed, Autocross, to our big bash at Pocono in September. Our executive committee, all volunteers by the way, have been working diligently to bring you a calendar that is stocked full - so the least you could do is come out and appreciate one or two or all events with us. That's all we ask. Participation. It makes us happy to see you enjoy yourselves, to talk among yourselves, to understand why it's not just the cars, it's the people.

The speed council will feature 5 events this year, down from 6 last year due to Summit Point being paved at the end of the year. Just as well because they will be a huge part of the celebration at Pocono. They have three days of de, along with intro to DE offered throughout the weekend. Our autocrossers will visit, Hershey, the Meadow Lands, with places in between, and will have a two day event on a track at Pocono on Saturday and Sunday with the help of the Northern New Jersey Region. Social will again be a big part with happy hours scattered through the region and Wendy has been planning our road trip this year to historic Williamsburg, We already have 50 people joining us, There will be rallies from Roy, tours from Paula, and plenty membership meetings as well as the picnic and drive-in movie in July.

Now as your president, I represented our region at the Zone 2 president's meeting at our National Headquarters in Columbia, Maryland during the first weekend of April. Our special guest was Aaron Ambrosino who is the national treasurer. He went over our national insurance policy; an in-depth discussion as to why they still won't insure teens with permits for our Street Survivals - a plug here - your members will be volunteering their time for roughly 5 Street Survivals this summer along with the BMW club and SCCA. Aaron also mention that PCA will not cover cart racing of any kind, drones at any events, or bouncy houses (that was a new one for me).

Now a little background, you are Riesentoter members but you are also members of zone 2. PCA breaks down all the regions into a few zones to better manage them. This used to be very important when the zone representative also thought they had the power of proxy voting (see one of our Der Gassers for my rant regarding that aspect) at the national board meetings. Anyway, the presidents of all the regions in Zone 2 make up the board of directors for the zone and years ago it was decided that Zone 2 would host a DE and a club race with the aid of each region. For years our beloved Brian Minkin was the track chair for the club race (big applause). It was also decided that any profit from such events would be equally distributed to the regions. This is particularly helpful to regions that are very small and could not possibly put on a DE event by themselves.

I'm very happy to say that last year RTR's cut was about $5500 and this year we received another $2800 from the profits of the zone DE and club race. This money goes into our funds and will be used to subsidize things like the family picnic, the 60th anniversary banquet at Camalback (free for all RTR members), the end of the year awards dinner, and a slew of stuff like free pinball or food at our membership meetings.

So in order to reap the benefits of your hardworking volunteers, we just ask you to come on out and participate. What could be easier? And if you cannot find something on that calendar - well shame on you.

Jeffrey Walton
President